


The Axolotl and the Feathered Serpent

by ShyEye



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: I guess this is sorta an AU?, I just really love mythology, Kinda creeped out I have to specify that, No Incest, Platonic Relationships, References to Aztec Religion & Lore, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27945263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyEye/pseuds/ShyEye
Summary: In Aztec mythology, there was a shunned God of death and monsters. The God had a twin, a revered God of knowledge and wisdom.The myth doesn't sit right with Ford.
Relationships: Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64





	The Axolotl and the Feathered Serpent

“Did you know the axolotl was named after an Aztec god?”

Ford straightened from where he sat on the edge of the channel, his back giving a mildly concerning creak of protest as he moved. The humidity was making his already unruly hair frizzy and clammy, and bugs were practically eating them alive. Yet Stan couldn’t remember a time his brother had looked happier. Somehow, he seemed at home there amongst the overgrown canals of Mexico. Or maybe he just seemed at home wherever they went, so long as they were chasing things no sane person should actively _try_ to find.

He couldn’t believe it’d almost been a year already. They’d been sailing back towards american waters and another summer with the kids when Stan suggested stopping in Mexico to relive some of his drifter glory days. Of course, it hadn’t taken long before they’d veered off that goal to chase local legends in the most remote nooks and crannies of the area, far from bars and city bustle.

Somehow, Stan found he didn’t mind.

“Yeah?” He replied halfheartedly. The critters were almost cute, despite the vacant look in their beady little eyes. Like a deformed puppy or something. Mable would probably love to have one. “What about ‘em?” 

“He was called Xolotl.” Ford nodded distractedly, not taking his eyes off the salamander he was attempting to lure to the surface with some leftover crumbs. ”The God of fire, lightning, deformities, monsters, death, and twins.” 

“Huh. Would you look at that. That's a lotta stuff on one guy’s plate. I sorta’ feel that as a twin I should be offended at being grouped with ‘monsters’ though.”

The salamander rose to the surface of the water and happily snapped at a few of the floating food scraps.

“I don’t know Stanley.” Ford finally turned his full attention to Stan, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I once saw you put fries in a milkshake. I think perhaps the Aztecs were onto something.”

“Brave words for someone in shoving distance Sixer. You wanna look _at_ the water or _in_ it?” Shifting to get a better look at the shimmering surface, Stan caught the sight of his reflection next to his brother’s and couldn’t help the fond smile that crept onto his face despite the warning tone. “Looks polluted.”

“I don’t think so, actually. I measured the water’s pH further upstream before we got sidetracked. If anything, the water here should be even cleaner as it is further removed from the city and most major pollutants. The axolotl likely stirred up silt while foraging, contributing to the somewhat murky appearance. Or perhaps-”

Deciding to interfere before his brother could go off on a thoroughly uninteresting tangent about water quality or some other junk, Stan decided to bring the conversation around to where it started.

“So, this Axolotl God guy. Did he actually look like one of these frilly lizards?” Stan watched the creature as it’s eyes almost seemed to meet him through the water’s surface. It reminded him of the one he’d found and decided to keep in the tank in the Shack, all pink and goofy-looking. He still had no clue how an animal that, according to Ford, was native only to a small range in Mexico had ended up in some random puddle in Oregon. Maybe it had been a throwaway pet. Either way, it wouldn’t make for a very imposing grim reaper.

“No, he didn’t.” Ford conceded, accepting the change in subject. “And axolotls are not reptiles, they’re amphibians. Although, according to the myths Xolotl _did_ have a twin who really was a reptile. Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent.”

“Man, that's a mouthful. Their parents must’ve hated him or something.”

“Actually, Xolotl was the unfavored twin. At least that's the modern interpretation. Quetzalcoatl was a God of wisdom, creativity, the wind and the dawn. In some myths, he was even considered the creator of mankind. Suffice to say, he was highly revered.” 

“Modern interpretation?”

“Yes, well… The Aztecs had a rather unfortunate set of beliefs about twins.” Ford hesitated for just a second, before continuing his explanation. “They were considered unnatural. Monstrous. Consequently, it was supposedly not wholly uncommon to kill one so their sibling could be permitted to survive.”

Stan’s previously rigid posture slumped slightly, but his passive interest also peaked. He only muttered a single “Rude.” in response.

“Quite.” Ford agreed empathetically. Before falling quiet. He glanced at Stan before following his downcast gaze back to the water. He’d never much considered the tale before, it was just another historic tidbit he’d come across in his study of the anomalous. Now, it made him feel melancholy, and a sad kind of nostalgia. “One interpretation is that Quetzalcoatl was the lucky twin, praised and beloved, and allowed to live.” Ford continued, somewhat less energetically.” While Xolotl was the murdered twin, confined to the underworld and blamed for all manner of hardships.”

Ford finished the sentence, and didn’t speak up again. The praised, scholarly, twin. And the scapegoat sacrificed for his brother. It didn’t sit right anymore. Ford stared at the axolotl, and he could have sworn The Axolotl stared back.

* * *

Since the first time the Axolotl had manifested himself on Earth, it had been one of his favorite planets. In an infinite universe, with infinite time, and infinite places to go he still found himself returning to observe the earth and its inhabitants.

The first time the Axolotl had manifested himself alongside his twin, it had been as an avatar with all his power intact. He’d been a God amongst men, and the humans had remembered him as such. The impact made had lasted a millenia. After that, he’d decided it would be better to leave it alone. The humans and their tiny lives felt somehow unique and special, even to a being who could see everything. He didn’t want to alter its course. Didn’t want to disrupt it. Humanity was a frighteningly fragile thing. A meticulously crafted spider web glistening with captured raindrops. A web of lives and deaths spiraling in every direction, stretched out far against the backdrop of an unending cosmos, yet able to be undone by a single careless touch from a larger being.

So the Axolotl remained a silent observer. Only ever allowing himself to interact with the fragile beings at the very end of their lives. But it didn’t quite feel like enough. Guiding the dead was just a fleeting, melancholy glimpse into their lives. Lives that had already been spent. Lives that somehow both ended far too soon, yet left stories so vast and intertwined with the web that even an all-seeing being sometimes struggled to unwind the thread without tearing the whole.

“Why are you sad?” His twin had asked of him. _Did_ ask of him. _Would_ ask of him.

Time was irrelevant. They were beings without ends and beginnings. Outside time. Outside existence. The Axolotl was everywhere at the same time as he was nowhere.

“If you want to see their world, why not?” His brother had continued. 

The Axolotl would argue that he had work that needed to be done, creatures died at all times, creatures that needed guidance, but he already knew his twin’s answer. He had already heard it, he _did_ hear it, and he _would_ hear it. All at the same time. They wouldn’t neglect their duties, even if they left them. They were infinite. A blink of their eyes could be a thousand years at one end of the multiverse, and hardly a fraction of that at another end. Time moved differently in different worlds, back and forwards, forwards and back. Time was irrelevant.

The Axolotl would argue that the risks were too great. That they could destroy the world he so longed to see just by trying to exist inside it. But he already knew his twin's answer to that too. They only risked upsetting the world if they weren’t part of it. Human hands were tiny. Human minds were limited. In human form it would be safe. The Axolotl knew this. He had already lived it, a human life. He _was_ living it, and he _would_ live it.

So the Axolotl smiled, and together with his twin he became human. He became human, and he stayed a God. He left, and he remained. He was all, and he was nothing.

The Axolotl closed his eyes, and the Axolotl opened them.

* * *

On the side of a channel in Mexico, Stanley Pines looked into the strangely vacant yet somehow present eyes of an axolotl. 

In the water of a channel in Mexico, an axolotl looked into a pair of human eyes and found his own.

Everywhere, and nowhere at all, the Axolotl watched himself stand on the overgrown shore and help his twin to his feet. He had lost count of how many human lives he and his brother had lived. How many they were currently living, and how many had yet to be lived. But somehow, he couldn’t help but think, this one was special.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even really know if this fandom is still alive, got introduced to the series because of quarantine. So here I am showing up late to the party with a half eaten box of pizza and a fic I wrote when I should have been sleeping.
> 
> Anyways I have way too many feels about old mythologies, and needed to do something with it. So surprise: Stan and Ford are mortal avatars of Aztec Gods, cause why not! Not sure if I'll write more on this. Maybe explore some other lives the Pine twins would have been yeeted into throughout history. The golden age of piracy? The industrial revolution? Honestly this all came about way too spontaneously and I have no concrete plans. Feedback/Comments are appreciated! :)


End file.
